Who
is the most beautiful woman in Germany? An official jury tries to answer
this question each year. In January 2002 it chose Miss Berlin to be the
most attractive woman (left picture). But is she really the most beautiful
one? The results of our study suggest - at least in theory - to be far
from the ideal.
For this reason we cooperated with Pro7 (a German television channel)
and managed to get portrait photos of all contestants of the final round
of this national beauty contest. In contrast to their live evaluation on
the catwalk, the beautiful women could not show a particular sexy way of
walking or put on a charming smile but had to comply with our scientific
requirements: Frontally photographed face, hair tied to the back, neutral
facial expression - and especially: no make-up!

A selection of the 22 contestants of the final round of the contest

Miss North-Rhine/Westphalia

Miss Thuringia

Miss Bavaria

Miss Bremen

Miss South Germany

Miss Baden-Wuerttemberg

Based on our previous research results we computed a new face out of
all original faces by using the described morphing software. The resulting
“virtual” beauty as well as all other original faces were evaluated with
respect to their attractiveness by a representative sample of people in
a local shopping center.

More beautiful than Miss Germany

The results are clear. The virtual face was rated by far as being most
attractive. On a scale reaching from 1 (= very unattractive) to 7 (= very
attractive) it obtained the highest score with an average of 6.2 and let
Miss Germany lie far behind having an average score of just 2.8. None of
the 47 asked test subjects rated the real Miss Germany as being more or
at least evenly attractive than the virtual one. The highest score of the
real faces obtained Miss Bremen (4.9 points), but also Miss Bremen lies
clearly and statistically most significantly behind the computer beauty.

"Real" and "virtual" Miss Germany in comparison:

On the left: the “real” Miss Germany 2002 (= Miss Berlin)
and on the right: the “virtual” Miss Germany, which was computed by blending
together all contestants of the final round and was rated as being much
more attractive.

A
little downer for the just crowned “Queen of Beauty” and officially most
beautiful woman in the country. But she will be able to cope with it -
she will never meet her virtual competitor as it only exists on a computer.